Five Ways to Prepare for Easter

Lent is officially over, the grocery store is full of candy (and the fake grass stuff that ends up all over your living room floor) and Easter is almost here. How do you prepare for it?

You could do nothing and just enjoy the day- that's certainly an option.

You could overprepare to the point of being stressed by the existence of Easter- that's another option.

Or, maybe you could thoughtfully point yourself in a direction that allows for maximum reflection on what Christians believe is the most important and solemn holiday of the year. I'm sure you aren't surprised that I'm going to recommend this final mode of prep so here goes:

1. Review your local church's services. Most churches offer some kind of "triduum" services- Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Triduum is Latin for "three days" and implies a set of services that flow from one to the other. I'm Catholic so our triduum features the following:

Holy Thursday: Mass that includes a washing of the feet of 12 parishioners. I always look forward to seeing whose feet will be washed each year. The altar is then stripped, symbolizing that Good Friday is right around the corner. Our family then visits several local churches to pray, a tradition that inner city Catholics have carried on for centuries. I guess it started in inner cities because most have a ton of churches to visit by walking.

Good Friday: Either the stations of the cross or a church service whereby a cross is venerated. Churches do this in their own way- some provide one huge cross for people to kiss or kneel in front of while others coordinate people into lines so that many different crosses can be venerated. This service is very solemn.

Easter Vigil (Saturday Night) / Easter Sunday: I love the Easter vigil services. In the Catholic tradition they take several hours and are rich in symbolism. You get it all- candles, fire, water, oil, song, etc. New Christians are baptized and welcomed into the church, something my wife Cary did some 17 years ago. It's pretty awesome and the church is redecorated to symbolize Easter joy.

2. Get away. Believe it or not, sometimes it's better to be anonymous for a big religious holiday. My friend J.B. Wood likes to visit a new church so that it's like a pilgrimage or sorts. Being in a new worship space can give you a fresh set of eyes.

3. Rest. You may be going into Easter with a sense of exhaustion so be sure to take naps, enjoy quiet mornings and take it easy.

4. Give yourself permission to eat simply. My friend Fran is planning on having a bean casserole with frozen vegetables and potatoes from a box. It's easy and I'm sure will taste delicious. Don't feel like you have to go crazy in order to enjoy Easter- find what works for you.

5. Engage with the Scripture story of the Resurrection. When was the last time you sat quietly and read one of the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection? Read it slowly, maybe two times if necessary.

These are five things that work for me.

How will you prepare for Easter?

Photo courtesy of FT

Pope Francis and the Importance of Servant Leadership

Can you remember a time when a new leader brought such palpable inspiration in his first week on the job?

Sure, Marissa Mayer is in the news a lot these days for her leadership at Yahoo. Poor Tim Cook can't catch a break even though Apple continues to amaze its shareholders. Then there's Cheryl Sandberg and the ways in which she's encouraging women in the workplace at Facebook and beyond.

Back to the man that few expected to get the job a week ago in the Vatican- Francis.

Catholics look at this name choice as fairly amazing. Francis is a Jesuit and yet he took a Franciscan name. This would be like me, as a Red Sox fan, naming my firstborn son after a famous Yankees player. Ok, so maybe the Pope's name choice is bigger than that but you get the point- in choosing the name Francis, the Pope made a statement.  Franciscans are still high-fiving one another around the world.

He's telling the Church that he feels that it needs a humble, down to earth, service-oriented pendulum swing. We have plenty of doctrine. Lots of devotions. More than a few novenas. What the Church needs to focus on now is its call to love and serve the least among us.  And not just for a few years as if it were a new marketing campaign.  The Church needs a few hundred years of practical, heart felt religiosity rather than the overly heady stuff that has taken the European and American Church hostage.  

This is scary stuff. Doctrine is easier because it's a matter of belief. Head and heart material for sure but belief nonetheless. Serving the poor? That's about action and it's messy.

Let me provide an example.

I was speaking with a friend recently who had worked with 30 unmarried couples, all preparing for marriage. All 30 were living together. Messy stuff.  I suspect that this is the kind of situation that the new Pope would want us to wrap our arms around.  For better or worse, there are a lot of other messy things surrounding Christians and their practice of the faith.  These include but aren't limited to:

• The fact that most Catholics don't practice the Church's teaching on contraception.
• The fact that so many Catholics voted for Obama, in spite of his pro-abortion views.
• The fact that so few Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  

There is a lot of messy stuff in the world probably because we are complicated and flawed people.  Francis accepts that and wants the Church to take these issues and infuse them with love.

I actually have hope for the first time in an awful long time.  The road will be difficult for sure.  Francis is only one man after all.  Still, if God could raise up Francis of Assisi in a time when the Church was on its knees, he can surely bring us a simple man from Argentina to teach us to serve.

How are you practicing servant leadership in your role at work or at home?

Why You Worry (and What You Can Do About It)

Are you a person who worries a lot?  

Maybe it’s the result of waiting on medical results.  Or, it could be the effect of having a child that is going through one of those phases.  Your job could cause you to worry or you may have anxiety from feeling like you’re in over your head.  

I can relate, trust me.  Just ask my wife or my team at work- they could list for you my insecurities or reasons for worry.  

Worry can get the best of you if you aren’t careful. It will put extra wrinkles on your forehead and produce fewer hours of sleep at night.  Have you ever known someone who looked much older than they really were?  Those are the people who we say something like, “He’s had a hard life- that’s why he looks so old!”  In short, worry will produce a result in your mind and body if you let it.

The most dangerous thing though about worry is what it can do to your spiritual life.  First, worry can be a sign of not fully accepting God’s unconditional love for you.  Some of us are too hard on ourselves because we don’t fully, completely, passionately accept that God is head over heals for us.  Think on that for a bit… it will rock your world.

Worry can also be a sign that we don’t fully trust God’s providence in our life.  Think about it in another way.  If I told my son Thomas that he can trust me to get him to school on time and then he spends the entire day before school worrying about whether or not we’ll arrive on time.  Talk about wasted energy on his part but worse yet, it would signal a lack of confidence in me as his dad.  (And I’m a pretty solid driver I might add.)

To avoid worry, we should lock in to the two fold practice of a) Accept God’s love and b) Trust that He knows what He’s doing.  A few passages from Scripture come to mind:

“So don't worry about having enough food or drink or clothing. He will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. So don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough for today.”  Matt. 6:33-34 (NLT)

And another that is helpful when we think of worrying,

“Give yourselves completely to God since you have been given new life.” Rom. 6:13b (NLT)

Worry doesn’t ever fully go away but you can lessen its effects through the following suggestions:

1. The moment you are tempted to worry, take your concern immediately to prayer.  It doesn't matter if you're at work or driving to an appointment- pray!
2. Talk about what you feel like worrying about with someone you trust.  This could be a spiritual director of a trusted friend.
3. Build a team around yourself that you can have total confidence in.  I often brag about my team at work because I trust them completely- that makes me worry less often.
4. Revisit Scripture often so that you are countering worry’s effects with the reassuring and continual Presence of God.  The Bible's wisdom doesn't go out of style.

I worry a lot.  I’m admittedly trying to get better and trust God more but worry is something that is always just around the corner.  Maybe you can relate.  If you are responsible for anyone besides yourself (a spouse, a child, an organization, a church, a town), it’s even more important that you learn to counter the temptation of worry.  

Fortunately, worry doesn’t have to get the best of you.  With some practice you’ll worry less and draw even closer to God. 

What are the things that you most often worry about?  What techniques do you practice when worry creaps in?

Photo courtesy of FS

Lessons in Faith from a Juggler

Have you ever felt stuck? I don't mean on the side of the road in your sedan. I'm talking about in your faith- in a rut, not feeling God's presence and not enjoying things at all.

All of us go through it. St. Teresa of Avila was known to have experienced what is often called "spiritual dryness" for nearly 17 years! St. John of the Cross famously called this the "dark night of the soul". Everything seems black and you feel alone.

I've been there and it doesn't feel good.

Not to trivialize the dark night (because it's not fun, let's be honest) but there are two things about it worth noting:

1. It's good if you realize that you're feeling sideways in your faith. That means you can still feel. You're not numb to things and God is still nudging you forward. Acknowledge it, write about it, talk to God about how it feels and ask what it might mean. Stick with your morning devotions and pray for the grace to stay on this side of the conflict.

2. Have a sense of humor about it. This isn't like laughing at a car crash on your way to work out of nervous energy. This is about acknowledging that you're human and sometimes life gets the best of you. It's almost like going on a diet and then falling off the tracks at the hands of a delicious pack of Mrs. Fields white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. The crumbs are in your lap and you realize you've just devoured six of the little devils in the span of two minutes. Just smile, wipe off your mouth and move on.

If you anticipate imperfection, the fall will be far less painful. Getting back up will become part of your routine.

My friend Gene is a juggler who talks about the importance of having a "drop line". In other words, when he drops a bowling pin, he already has a funny line ready to say. The audience thinks it's funny and he just moves on with the show, calmly picking up the pin as if it's part of his act.

Imperfection is part of the thing. This applies to life, juggling and living as a disciple of Christ.

Question: When was the last time that you had to push through a spiritually dry patch?

3 Signs that You Are Becoming More Contemplative

Mother Theresa said that her sisters, who lived simply and served the poor, were more than social workers. She described the role of her nuns in the following way:

“We are all called to be contemplatives in the heart of the world — by seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, everywhere, all the time, and [God's] hand in every happening; seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor.”

This is contemplation being lived out not on an isolated mountaintop but through daily life.

Like daily saints, contemplatives hug the world in which they live. They see the hurt and walk towards it. They find beauty in unexpected things. They find ordinary life to be an opportunity for God to do something amazing. It's good to be contemplative but it does take time to develop.

How do you know that you are becoming more contemplative?

1. You notice something that you didn't see previously. A sunrise, a mailbox, a physical characteristic of a colleague, the accent of someone you know, a field on the way home that you ordinarily wouldn't notice.

2. You read more slowly. Rather than being sucked in by the quick pull of Twitter or Facebook or Email, you manage to read more slowly. Books come alive, the Bible is interesting once again and you have more "AHA" moments.

3. You actually listen when others are talking. I don't mean that you are waiting to speak in a more polite way than usual. I mean actually listening to folks and then taking in everything that they say. Real listening.

Being a contemplative is powerful stuff.

Are you recognizing signs in your own life that show a growing contemplative spirit?

*Photo courtesy of JW.